There and Back Again

Camila Di Pasquale looked at the huge quarters she had been assigned to; they were far bigger than the old Black Hawk and the aesthetic was also far more pleasing. What she couldn't get over was the fact that she was now assigned to the new Black Hawk-A and had been shanghaied by none other than Captain Harvey Geisler. He had arranged to get her back even when she had been determined to atone for what had happened on Deep Space Eleven and the events leading up to it.

People died, the ombre haired young woman heard echoing in her mind. The very people that you had sworn to protect. She also heard the Captain's words in her mind Regardless of circumstances or feelings... I believe that your place is here on the Black Hawk he had told her. It was the make sure you don't when she had told him that she hoped she didn't let him down.

"How can anyone expect someone to not let them down?!" Camila cried out to the empty quarters. Her words hit the dull surfaces and were absorbed, not even throwing them back at her. She wanted to rage and throw everything into disarray and to punish herself for even speaking the words that she hoped she didn't let him down. "I can't even promise not to let myself down," she said quietly before she sank down onto the sofa that was part of the furnishings.

A tear started to slide down her cheek before she dashed it away angrily and curled up into a fetal position. She didn't belong there; she didn't even belong in Starfleet. She wanted to go home, but when she had been there, she had known her home was now among the stars and like it or not, it's where she was once again. It had been nice to be home and surrounded by family and friends, but the time she had spent there only enforced the knowledge that the unfettered freedom and the unknown of the stars were a siren call to the adventurer that dwelled inside of her.

A deep shudder wracked her slim body and despite her efforts, a flood of tears came from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She cried for all that had been lost. She cried for things that couldn't be changed. She even cried for the loss of a relationship that she had had for a brief time with Temerant. She shook and cried and screamed in the silent quarters until she felt like she had been drenched in tears, wrung out of all emotions and then hung out to dry in the vacuum of space.

After an hour or an eternity, Camila sat up, forced herself to her feet and walked into the bathroom where a large mirror reflected a red eyed, wild haired woman who looked haunted. She was skinnier than she had been when she first left the Black Hawk, her cheekbones sharper and the enthusiasm that had once shown in her eyes was dulled. She had taken a massive downward spiral when she came back from shore leave and spent most of the time on Deep Space Eleven either working herself to death on multiple shifts in a row or drinking herself to sleep so she didn't hear the screams of her dying crewmates and fellow Starfleet officers as they fought against each other.

She washed the tear streaks off of her face and spent a moment still looking at the reflection the mirror cast back at her. It was the Camila Di Pasquale who was broken and she was on a new ship with the same name where the break had occurred. It was not a person that Captain Geisler would want to see on the bridge or trust to take care of his crew and it was not the person the Academy had spent numerous hours shaping into an officer. It certainly wasn't the sharp eyed and sharp minded Chief of Security she had been when she had first gotten the assignment.

Camila left the bathroom and headed back to the replicator where she ordered several makeup items which would hide the dark circles under her eyes, smooth her sharp cheekbones and dull the new lines of worry which had formed during her solo sojourn into the pit of misery. Once she had everything, she replicated a new uniform before she went back into the bathroom. "It's time to get rid of you," she told her mirror image as she removed the dress uniform which she had worn to Harvey and Joey's wedding.

The sonic shower called to her and she spent a half an hour under the pulsating waves which sought to ease her tired and overworked muscles before she got out. She studied herself in the mirror before she began to apply the hider of truths she had replicated with meticulous care. It wouldn't last longer than a duty shift at a time, but it would hide the person she didn't want to see until she could put the face on for the next shift.

Once she was satisfied as she could be with her efforts, Camila changed into her new uniform and transferred the two pips from the dress uniform to her collar and finally put the combadge over her left breast. "Lieutenant Di Pasquale, reporting," she said, but her voice was still listless. That won't do, she thought and spent another half an hour trying to build the tone of a confident officer she had been taught in the Academy until she had it down to what sounded like a reasonable facsimile of what a Chief of Security should sound like.

Finally, she left the bathroom and hung her dress uniform in the empty wardrobe and looked at the small box which Captain Geisler had arranged to have sent from Deep Space Eleven. It contained a couple uniforms which were a bit loose on her spare frame, a picture of her parents, brother and his fiance that she had met on Earth, a PADD filled with violin music which she had written and never played, and a book called There and Back Again, a Hobbit's Tale that an officer on Deep Space Eleven had recommended to her.

Camila unpacked everything and recycled the uniforms, put the picture next to the bed and placed the book next to it. She had nothing else but she didn't really need anything else; to collect the useless only cluttered ones life up and made it harder to pull up roots or have to suffer through the loss of everything again. She could order food from the replicator, a thought that made her stomach growl and reminded her that all she had had at the wedding was nothing more than a piece of cake and the sugar rush had already worn off during her time on the sofa.

She sighed and got up to go to it where she ordered a hoagie with ham, capicola, provolone cheese and Genoa salami topped with lettuce, tomato slices, onion, oil and vinegar, salt, pepper, oregano and peppers and Coppia Ferrarese sourdough bread, with a glass of pear juice and a large pickle. She headed to the small table and chairs which were present in every quarters she had been in save those of enlisted personnel and forced herself to eat. It was a taste of home and she tried to think of the Black Hawk-A as her new home.

It would take a while, she knew, but like the Hobbit in the story she had yet to read, she would get there and be back again.